CSotD: Ending the Year Early or Buying the Gifts Late
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I stumbled over the New Yorker Cartoons of the Year 2015 on the newstand and wasn't sure at first if it was the current issue or a special, but it's a special.
Or, one might say, a softcover book with a very soft cover, since it's basically a thick (perfect bound) magazine with the only ads in the first two and last two of its 144 pages and a price tag of $12.99.
However, as you see by this page from which you can order it, they have a 30% off sale that ends today, so there's your reward for reading this so promptly.
You're welcome.
One of the hallmarks of a New Yorker cartoon is the way they affectionately mock the foibles of their own suburban gentry, so I suppose they won't mind if I snicker at the suggestion that you buy a $13 book and then "Get your scissors and refrigerator magnets ready," which those of us who skip over those ads for multi-thousand-dollar wristwatches would not do.
Magnets don't stick to the doors of the modern, upscale refrigerators of the suburban gentry anyway. I don't know why.
Well, obviously, I do know why: They aren't the right kind of metal. I just don't know why you'd eliminate such a handy, established benefit, especially since, if the doors aren't covered with cartoons, children's drawings and reminders of meetings from six weeks ago, you'd have to wipe them down regularly.
Or your housekeeper would.
Those nits having been thoroughly picked, this is a good collection of funny stuff, and if you need a refresher in how New Yorker cartoons qualify as funny, Terry Gross's March, 2014, interview with NYer comics editor Bob Mankoff was just rebroadcast on Fresh Air.
And nobody mocks foibles like Roz Chast, perhaps because she isn't a product of those upscale suburbs and has just enough fury beneath the surface to add edge to her commentaries on class. (Note the gray at the right. This is a full-page feature and, as noted, I'm not in a position to get out those scissors like a real New Yorker reader would.)
While the bulk of the 250 cartoons are one-off grayscale gags, Chast has seven pages of single-page, multi-panel color work, while Julia Wertz gets another seven to take us on a graphic-journalism tour of the Greenbush neighborhood. There are a few other more long-form graphic pieces, as well as some short, interesting articles on related topics like how to win the caption contest and how cartoons are fact-checked.
Here are some other things that caught my eye:
Juxtaposition of the Class Distinctions
Here's an interesting pair of cartoons. First of all, they're funny. That's only to be expected in a "Best of" collection.
But note the word choices:
In the first, Hafeez could have said "Your contents have settled," the familiar disclaimer on boxes of crackers and cereal. "Your contents have shifted" refers, rather, to the warning given by flight attendants about opening the overhead compartments after landing.
It's the better choice, because it's less specific. "Your contents have settled" simply implies that you've grown a pot belly. "Your contents have shifted" suggests a much more non-specific, systemic series of changes. In the first place, it's scarier, and, in the second, goddammit, Doc, you've got to give me more information than that.
The idea of "your body has become basically f-ed up over time" is much funnier than "you need to lose some weight." And, given the demographics of the New Yorker target audience, there's absolutely no reason not to reference a phrase that only frequent flyers will get.
But Paul Noth's courtroom gag faces an opposite challenge: He could have said "wealthy" instead of "rich," but there is a significant difference in the implications of those two words, despite the fact that they describe the same thing.
A wealthy person has done well in life. In polite society where we all must affect an air of modesty, a wealthy person may describe his financial situation as "comfortable," and that likely means that, when he sees the ads for those ridiculously expensive watches in the New Yorker, he thinks more about whether he needs another watch than he does about whether he should spend the money.
A rich person, by contrast, is an undeserving, over-entitled, arrogant son-of-a-bitch, just the sort to buy his way out of jail.
Not that a wealthy person wouldn't spend $1,000 on a lawyer to get his kid out of a $150 speeding ticket.
Yet another case of that mirror in which people see every face but their own.
But it is the right choice of words: Heck, even wealthy people despise the rich.
On a related note
This seems like it would be a costly add-on to your funeral plans,but I'm thinking of getting an estimate, because, if it's not too expensive, it could make me rethink my cremation plans.
I'm sure they wouldn't allow that: If you fell out, they'd have to resurface the entire run.
Then as farce
This Harry Bliss piece gave me the biggest laugh of the whole collection and the biggest laugh of any cartoon in a very long time.
I won't speculate as to how, or even "if," he knew how funny it was, but I well remember what makes me find it so hilarious.
I hope for your sake you only think it's moderately amusing.
And speaking of Whom
This explains so very, very much.
But wait! There's more!
Here is Kevin Kallaugher's latest and boy oh boy do I feel just like them, and not just on this topic.
It really makes you rethink your position on spanking, doesn't it?
I'd have pointed it out anyway, but while we're talking about things you might want to get for the holidays (one of which I realize is Already In Progress), Kal is planning a second printing of his magnificent "Daggers Drawn" collection, which came out in time for Christmas, 2013, and was the centerpiece of my holiday giving then.
Meanwhile, he's got some copies of the slip-covered, elegant presentation edition left and ready for sale, and I strongly recommend it. The New Yorker collection is a nice stocking-stuffer. This is a OMG level gift.
More "Best of the Year"
Michael Cavna has a substantial collection of 2015 Editorial Cartoons over at Comic Riffs.
Let's try to get through the next three weeks or so without making him regret posting now, okay?
Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.
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